Joshua Loudell Basham v. the State of Texas ( 2024 )

Affirmed and Opinion Filed April 24, 2024
In The
Court of Appeals
Fifth District of Texas at Dallas
No. 05-22-01189-CR
JOSHUA LOUDELL BASHAM, Appellant
V.
THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee
On Appeal from the County Court at Law No. 1
Hunt County, Texas
Trial Court Cause No. CR2200041
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Before Justices Partida-Kipness, Pedersen, III, and Garcia
Opinion by Justice Pedersen, III
A jury found appellant Joshua Loudell Basham guilty of Assault Causing
Bodily Injury—Family Violence. The trial court assessed appellant’s punishment at
confinement in the Hunt County Jail for 300 days. In a single issue in this Court,
appellant contends that the evidence is legally insufficient to support his conviction.
We affirm the trial court’s judgment.
Background
At the time of events made the basis of his prosecution, appellant was married
to, but separated from, the complaining witness, Aundrea Courns.1 On
November 26, 2021, the day after Thanksgiving, appellant and Courns had gone
together to shop for Christmas gifts for their daughter. Courns drove them in her car;
appellant had parked his car in a lot across the street from Courns’s apartment. After
shopping, Courns was driving back to that lot to drop appellant off to get his car,
when an argument arose between them.
At trial, Courns described the incident this way:
Josh was sitting in the passenger seat of my car, and we—I had been
trying to get him to get out of my car, and he refused. And he was
screaming at me and accusing me of having an affair with my neighbor
and several other people. And I kept telling him, no, I wasn’t having an
affair. I don’t know why you were saying all these things. And he was
just—kept just going on and on, you know, just pounding it in that I
was doing these things. And eventually, I just—was just like, okay,
maybe I am doing those things. Can you still please get out of my car?
And he didn’t like that response, and that’s when he backhanded me
across this side of my face and my ear.
Courns was upset by this, and she wanted appellant out of her car. When asked about
appellant’s demeanor, she said he was “upset,” and he was “saying things that to me
didn’t make any sense, and he was just unconsolable, I guess you could say.”
1
Initial court documents refer to the complaining witness as “Aundrea Basham.” Between the time of
the charge against appellant and trial, the couple had divorced, and she had changed her name to “Aundrea
Courns,” which is how we will refer to her.
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Courns testified further that immediately after appellant struck her, she got
out of the car, called the police, and arranged to meet an officer at her apartment.
Appellant got out of the car and walked away.
Courns drove to her apartment, and Officer Brennan Drozeski of the Corinth
Police Department arrived within five minutes of her call. Drozeski testified at trial
that he observed “marks or injuries” on Courns. He took two pictures of her face that
day; those pictures were admitted into evidence and showed what Drozeski said were
“red marks on her face.”
Courns testified to the pain caused by appellant’s “backhand,” saying:
Initially, it stung when he did it. Afterwards, my ear was still stinging
and still like—maybe, like, a wasp had, like, stung you is the way I
would describe it.
She stated that her ear was sore for a day or two afterwards.
Appellant testified at trial; his description of events was different. He agreed
that they’d been Christmas shopping, but he stated that, on the way home: “There
was an argument about a tough situation that we disagreed upon.” He said that both
of them were upset, and he asked her to take him to his car so he could go home. She
drove up to the car and slowed down but did not stop. The two continued to have
“an exchange” about that situation, and he asked her again to stop the car so he could
get out. But then, he testified, “she said something very hateful to me, and I put the
car in park and got out.” He explained that he reached over to the console, grabbed
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the gear shift, and pushed it into park, causing the car to stop “[r]ather abruptly.”
Then he got out and walked away.
Appellant testified that he did not at any time strike, or slap, or backhand
Courns. He stated, “I did not touch her.”
The jury found appellant guilty of assaulting a family member by causing her
bodily injury. The trial court sentenced him to 300 days in the county jail. This
appeal followed.
Discussion
Appellant was charged by information with:
intentionally, knowingly, and recklessly caus[ing] bodily injury to
Aundrea [Courns], a member of the Defendant’s family . . . by striking
the head of the victim with the hand of the Defendant.
See TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. § 22.01(a)(1). Accordingly, the State was required to
prove both the act charged (that appellant struck Courns in the head with his hand
causing her bodily injury) and one of the mental states charged (intentionally,
knowingly, or recklessly). In a single issue on appeal, appellant challenges the
sufficiency of the evidence proving a culpable mental state.
We review appellant’s challenge by examining the evidence in the light most
favorable to the verdict to determine whether any rational trier of fact could have
found the essential elements of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt. Jackson v.
Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (1979). We do not evaluate the weight of the evidence.
Dewberry v. State, 4 S.W.3d 735, 740 (Tex. Crim. App. 1999). Nor may we replace
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the factfinder’s judgment with our own. Id. We defer to the jury’s responsibility “to
fairly resolve conflicts in testimony, to weigh the evidence, and to draw reasonable
inferences from basic facts to ultimate facts.” Hooper v. State, 214 S.W.3d 9, 13
(Tex. Crim. App. 2007) (quoting Jackson, 443 U.S. at 318–19).
Assault causing bodily injury is a result-oriented offense. Price v. State, 457
S.W.3d 437, 442 (Tex. Crim. App. 2015) (“The gravamen of assault with bodily
injury is injury, a result of conduct.”). And the necessary result of this offense—
“bodily injury”—is “physical pain, illness, or any impairment of physical
condition.” PENAL § 1.07(a)(8). For example, then, the State could prove appellant
acted with the requisite recklessness if it established that he was aware of, but
consciously disregarded, a substantial and unjustifiable risk that Courns would
experience physical pain as a result of striking her with his hand. Id. § 6.03(c). The
risk appellant ignored must have been “of such a nature and degree that its disregard
constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of care that an ordinary person would
exercise under all the circumstances as viewed from the actor’s standpoint.” Id. The
mental state of an accused is most often established by circumstantial evidence. See
Nisbett v. State, 552 S.W.3d 244, 267 (Tex. Crim. App. 2018) (“By its nature, a
culpable mental state must generally be inferred from the circumstances.”). We draw
inferences of mental state from an individual’s acts, words, and conduct. Id.At trial, appellant denied striking Courns. However, the act was proven by
direct evidence that he does not challenge on appeal: Courns’s testimony,
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Drozeski’s testimony, and the photographs of Courns’s face taken the day of the
incident. Accordingly, we proceed from the premise that appellant did in fact
backhand or slap Courns across her face and ear.
After examining the record as a whole, we conclude the following evidence
supports the jury’s finding that appellant acted—at a minimum—with recklessness
in this case:
 Courns testified that leading up to the assaultive contact, appellant was
shouting repeatedly at her and was not making sense; the jury could have
inferred from this conduct that he was so upset that he was not exhibiting
reasonable behavior.
 Courns related that she made a sarcastic response to appellant’s unfounded
accusations. (Appellant called it a “very hateful” remark.) He “didn’t like
that” and responded by striking her; the jury could have inferred that after
hearing Courns’s caustic response, appellant lashed out against her in anger.
 The red marks across Courns’s face, evidenced by Drozeski’s testimony and
the photographs, indicate that appellant lashed out with significant force; the
jury could have inferred that—in his anger—he ignored the obvious risk that
striking out with such force would cause Courns pain.
We conclude a rational jury could have inferred from the evidence at trial that
appellant acted recklessly when he struck Courns, i.e., he was aware of, but
consciously disregarded, the substantial and unjustifiable risk that by striking
Courns, he would cause her physical pain. And a rational jury could also have
inferred that when appellant struck Courns as he did—in the face of that risk—he
deviated grossly from the standard of care that a reasonable person would have
exercised under those circumstances. See PENAL § 6.03(c).
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The evidence is sufficient to support the jury’s finding that appellant acted
recklessly when he struck Courns. We overrule his single appellate issue.
Conclusion
We affirm the trial court’s judgment.
/Bill Pedersen, III/
221189f.u05 BILL PEDERSEN, III
Do Not Publish JUSTICE
TEX. R. APP. P. 47
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Court of Appeals
Fifth District of Texas at Dallas
JUDGMENT
JOSHUA LOUDELL BASHAM, On Appeal from the County Court at
Appellant Law No. 1, Hunt County, Texas
Trial Court Cause No. CR2200041.
No. 05-22-01189-CR V. Opinion delivered by Justice
Pedersen, III. Justices Partida-
THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee Kipness and Garcia participating.
Based on the Court’s opinion of this date, the judgment of the trial court is
AFFIRMED.
Judgment entered this 24th day of April, 2024.
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